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I stopped using Lightroom because it seems to want to modify the Windows Explorer to have a Creative Cloud section and their background software constantly pops

I stopped using Lightroom because it seems to want to modify the Windows Explorer to have a Creative Cloud section and their background software constantly pops up to tell you that it still exists. What's nice about their subscription model is that there is no sunk cost when giving up. It's $5/month and you just stop paying it. (I switched to Affinity Photo for editing but never found anything I liked for organization/library management. I just copy files around now. It ends up being OK because about 50% of my photos are from my phone, 25% are from a DSLR, and 25% are from film scans. Lightroom never helped me with phone or scanned photos, really, so I didn't give much up. Would still like some central self-hosted photo collector, though. Maybe Perkeep is what I want.)

acdha 7y ago
> What's nice about their subscription model is that there is no sunk cost when giving up. It's $5/month and you just stop paying it. Don't they try to get you to make a year commitment? I remember spending about 30 minutes with someone at Adobe getting them to cancel it when Lightroom was too slow to use on my Mac at the time (which had been more than fast enough for Aperture). After the second or third time that I told them I wasn't going to buy a new computer just for the privilege of running their software, they agreed not to charge a hefty early termination fee.
- robbintt 7y ago
  Yes, I had to pay a fee equal to 50% of the remaining year contract. I will no longer receive PSDs directly from designers, so the designers must now to export stuff to web spec so I can work with it outside adobe.
  - gtkspert 7y ago
    I marked my card as damaged, and when it was replaced I refused to give them the new details...
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      I've done this an number of times to avoid the usual cancellation nightmares. Be careful though, some card issues will forward the new card details on to (some?) services you have a payment agreement with.
  - nessunodoro 7y ago
    GIMP handles PSD, no?
    - mattmanser 7y ago
      I've not tried for several years, but it was never that great at doing that. Last time I had to do this, I gave up and bought a photoshop subscription. Has it improved now?
      - Chazprime 7y ago
        Nope. Adjustment and FX layers don't translate, as well as some compositing and blending options.
- aetherspawn 7y ago
  I managed to get out of this by just explaining that I didn't have the money to pay the subscription anymore. They seem pretty sympathetic to that.
  - acdha 7y ago
    That’s probably a better angle
tristor 7y ago
Try DarkTable and RawTherapee. Both of these options are pretty decent open source alternatives to Lightroom for the majority of basic workflows and common cameras.
- buo 7y ago
  I'd say they both are more than adequate, and allow for some pretty advanced workflows, since they expose a lot more tools with more fine-grained control than Lightroom. For anyone who tries these programs, many of their developers and users hang out at https://discuss.pixls.us/ https://discuss.pixls.us/
mehdix 7y ago
Wouldn't Syncthing do the collection part for you?
chrisweekly 7y ago
Thanks for the tip! I took a look, and it turns out Affinity Photo is 50% off right now. So, a one-time $25 purchase (via App Store for family sharing)! And it handles PSDs. And the iPad version is $10. Adobe is toast.
- tambourine_man 7y ago
  > Adobe is toast. I really, really wish that was the case, but there's no competition for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Even after years of destroying their software with cloud crap, useless home screens, changing 30 years of muscle memory just because, all while adding a WebKit and Node.js instance for every new dialog box… …nothing comes even close to any of those tools.
  - narrator 7y ago
    QuarXPress thought they owned the market and then they started taking advantage of their users. Same goes for Adobe. The resentment is building up. Once there's a viable alternative people will quickly switch and never look back.
    - tambourine_man 7y ago
      It took many years and millions, being bundled with the rest of the Adobe suite and, perhaps most importantly, the arrival of OS X and Quark’s inability to migrate to it, for InDesign to displace Quark. And let’s not forget that Adobe had years of experience with PageMaker. Pro software is hard.
      - ascagnel_ 7y ago
        Hell, I remember 2003-2005 and being _excited_ to switch to InDesign. I think the issue pro software has is that at some point it's basically "done", with only small updates still required, yet the developers of said pro software need to make their sales numbers. I'd be fine with cloud subscription software if the TCO ended up being lower than buying a boxed product, but it's seemingly more expensive than it ever was. $10USD/mo doesn't seem bad, but if you're comparing to a two-year, $200 upgrade price, then you're spending $40 more and can't opt to skip the latest menu reshuffle.
raihansaputra 7y ago
If you need fast import/large curation/file management and you're willing to pay, I haven't found anything like Photo Mechanic.
robotbikes 7y ago
I've found DigiKam to be the most fully featured of the photo managers I've used. It even does facial recognition on your local box w/o sharing your data like most of the cloud hosted options. I'm not in love with the UI/workow but it works and can be installed on most OS I think.

acdha 7y ago

> What's nice about their subscription model is that there is no sunk cost when giving up. It's $5/month and you just stop paying it. Don't they try to get you to make a year commitment? I remember spending about 30 minutes with someone at Adobe getting them to cancel it when Lightroom was too slow to use on my Mac at the time (which had been more than fast enough for Aperture). After the second or third time that I told them I wasn't going to buy a new computer just for the privilege of running their software, they agreed not to charge a hefty early termination fee.

robbintt 7y ago
Yes, I had to pay a fee equal to 50% of the remaining year contract. I will no longer receive PSDs directly from designers, so the designers must now to export stuff to web spec so I can work with it outside adobe.
- gtkspert 7y ago
  I marked my card as damaged, and when it was replaced I refused to give them the new details...
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    I've done this an number of times to avoid the usual cancellation nightmares. Be careful though, some card issues will forward the new card details on to (some?) services you have a payment agreement with.
- nessunodoro 7y ago
  GIMP handles PSD, no?
  - mattmanser 7y ago
    I've not tried for several years, but it was never that great at doing that. Last time I had to do this, I gave up and bought a photoshop subscription. Has it improved now?
    - Chazprime 7y ago
      Nope. Adjustment and FX layers don't translate, as well as some compositing and blending options.
aetherspawn 7y ago
I managed to get out of this by just explaining that I didn't have the money to pay the subscription anymore. They seem pretty sympathetic to that.
- acdha 7y ago
  That’s probably a better angle

tristor 7y ago

Try DarkTable and RawTherapee. Both of these options are pretty decent open source alternatives to Lightroom for the majority of basic workflows and common cameras.

buo 7y ago
I'd say they both are more than adequate, and allow for some pretty advanced workflows, since they expose a lot more tools with more fine-grained control than Lightroom. For anyone who tries these programs, many of their developers and users hang out at https://discuss.pixls.us/ https://discuss.pixls.us/

mehdix 7y ago

Wouldn't Syncthing do the collection part for you?

chrisweekly 7y ago

Thanks for the tip! I took a look, and it turns out Affinity Photo is 50% off right now. So, a one-time $25 purchase (via App Store for family sharing)! And it handles PSDs. And the iPad version is $10. Adobe is toast.

tambourine_man 7y ago
> Adobe is toast. I really, really wish that was the case, but there's no competition for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Even after years of destroying their software with cloud crap, useless home screens, changing 30 years of muscle memory just because, all while adding a WebKit and Node.js instance for every new dialog box… …nothing comes even close to any of those tools.
- narrator 7y ago
  QuarXPress thought they owned the market and then they started taking advantage of their users. Same goes for Adobe. The resentment is building up. Once there's a viable alternative people will quickly switch and never look back.
  - tambourine_man 7y ago
    It took many years and millions, being bundled with the rest of the Adobe suite and, perhaps most importantly, the arrival of OS X and Quark’s inability to migrate to it, for InDesign to displace Quark. And let’s not forget that Adobe had years of experience with PageMaker. Pro software is hard.
    - ascagnel_ 7y ago
      Hell, I remember 2003-2005 and being _excited_ to switch to InDesign. I think the issue pro software has is that at some point it's basically "done", with only small updates still required, yet the developers of said pro software need to make their sales numbers. I'd be fine with cloud subscription software if the TCO ended up being lower than buying a boxed product, but it's seemingly more expensive than it ever was. $10USD/mo doesn't seem bad, but if you're comparing to a two-year, $200 upgrade price, then you're spending $40 more and can't opt to skip the latest menu reshuffle.

raihansaputra 7y ago

If you need fast import/large curation/file management and you're willing to pay, I haven't found anything like Photo Mechanic.

robotbikes 7y ago

I've found DigiKam to be the most fully featured of the photo managers I've used. It even does facial recognition on your local box w/o sharing your data like most of the cloud hosted options. I'm not in love with the UI/workow but it works and can be installed on most OS I think.